At Vulture, Art Spiegelman discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, which is back in the news after being banned by the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee. He elaborates on why he never intended his work to be an educational tool for children with a tidy, easily acceptable ending. “I never wanted Maus to be for children,” Spiegelman explains. “I wasn’t doing it in the context of, ‘I’m going to teach people to be better; I’m going to teach people that they should learn about the Holocaust because: Never again.’”
Art Spiegelman on the Lasting Power of ‘Maus’
An Oral History of Oral Histories
Last week, I called 2011 “the year of television’s oral history” because of the bevy of recently published oral history books. As it turns out, the explosion is part of a trend, as Michaelangelo Matos notes in this piece for The Daily.
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On a Different Note
And now for something completely different, a book review of Shaq’s new memoir.
Goosebumps Turns Twenty
Two decades after the release of the first Goosebumps book, Jen Doll checks in with R. L. Stine.
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The Summer Rooster Strikes Back
The second annual Rooster Summer Reading Challenge starts next week with two selections for June: Julián Herbert‘s Tomb Song and Tayari Jones‘s An American Marriage. Get yourself ready with an essay about black love stories featuring Jones’ novel.
Shirley Jackson in the Woods
The New Yorker has published another recently discovered Shirley Jackson short story “The Man in the Woods,” a fairy tale that takes on some classic mythology. According to her son, it’s one of many new stories found in her archives, and we can expect a new collection next year. “What was surprising to us was not that she was so prolific and had left behind so much unseen work but, rather, the quality of that work,” Laurence Jackson Hyman said.
Guernica’s South
Guernica’s latest issue is devoted to the American South. As the issue’s introduction states, “The American South is at once a geographical distinction and a bright spot in the imagination, where burden vies with birthright, and where ignorance and renaissance exist side by side.” The issue features a Kiese Laymon essay on inequality and language, Ed Winstead on the Southern accent in writing, an interview with Jesmyn Ward, fiction, and more.
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Michael Chabon Loves The Phantom Tollbooth
Michael Chabon journeys to the Lands Beyond in his introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of The Phantom Tollbooth, readable over at the NYRBlog.
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